Cold Realizations
by Settiai
Summary: Shepard couldn't sleep the night that they got back from Noveria. [Coraline Shepard: Colonist, Ruthless, Sentinel]


Shepard couldn't sleep the night that they got back from Noveria.

Sleeplessness wasn't an unfamiliar visitor at night, but for once she didn't expect it. Compared to some of the other missions they'd been on since this entire mess had started, Noveria had been a damn cakewalk.

Except for the fucking rachni queen.

Shepard sat up with a frustrated groan. "Damn it," she muttered, grabbing her pillow and—in a fit of anger than she usually held under tighter control—threw it at the nearest wall.

She flinched a little when the pillow started glowing blue halfway through its flight, hitting the wall with more force than she had intended. It had been a long time since she'd had an accidental flare up like that, not since just after Torfan.

She didn't want to think about what this one said about the current status of things.

"Fucking terrific," Shepard grumbled, pulling herself out of bed to retrieve her pillow. She could probably have used her biotics to bring it back to her, but she suspected that the way her night was going there was a good chance that she'd accidentally blow it up instead.

Rachni. Fucking rachni.

She was the one who was willing to do what it took, to do what needed to be done when no one else would. That was the name she had made for herself ever since she had survived Mindoir when the rest of her family hadn't. Cora Shepard, Butcher of Torfan. Monster. Killer. Executioner.

Torfan. The slaver base in 2180. Hell, even Asteroid X57, just a few weeks ago. She hadn't hesitated, not even for a second. She had sacrificed the hostages with barely a second thought, with only a moment's regret, but she still thought it was worth the cost to be certain that Balak would never hurt another living person again.

Hell, she'd even found a little bit of pleasure in that part, making sure that he didn't get a quick, painless death. A graze here, a shoulder wound there… it was better than the bastard had deserved.

_And that's why Kaidan has been all but ignoring you_, a traitorous part of her mind whispered. _It's one thing to hear the stories. It's another to see the Butcher in action. He didn't know that predators play with their food._

Still, it didn't make sense. She didn't hesitate. She didn't second-guess her actions. She made a decision and then she acted on it, end of story.

Except she hadn't killed the rachni queen, even after she had made her choice. She'd passed her judgment, had stepped forward to enact the sentence… and then Liara had argued for mercy, had pointed out that the rachni queen had done nothing to them, and Shepard had _fucking listened_. She'd hesitated, for just a moment, and that was all it had taken.

In a single instant, everything she knew about herself was shaken to the core.

_It was because it didn't involve the batarians_, that same traitorous voice in her head pointed out. _Because it wasn't personal. Because the rachni weren't the ones who took away every single thing in the universe that has ever meant a damn thing to you. Because you know damn well that if you had the chance to wipe batarians out of existence with a press of a button, you'd gladly commit genocide in an instant._

Shepard sat back down on her bed, her pillow still held loosely in her hands. Her breaths were coming out in shaky gasps, and she didn't know exactly when that had started. She was the Butcher of Torfan. She didn't give second chances. She didn't offer mercy. She didn't hesitate.

Not when it came to batarians, at least. Or geth. But apparently she did when it came to rachni. And if she did for a bunch of bugs, what about humans? Turians? Quarians? For the first time since she was sixteen, she thought that there might actually be a line that she wasn't willing to cross. But where was it drawn? What were her limits?

Who exactly was she?

Shepard let out a strangled cry, halfway between a yell and a sob. There was a blinding flash of blue as her biotics flared up.

The pillow fell from her hands, landing on the floor in two uneven halves.

So did three datapads that had been sitting on her desk.

"Damn it all to hell," Shepard said, her anger draining out of her.

Who was she?


End file.
